from the hum-dinger dept

A short while ago, we discussed a rather concerning lawsuit brought by AM General LLC, the company that makes Humvees, against Activision, the game publisher that occasionally publishes Call of Duty games that include depictions of Humvees. AM General's claims are pretty silly, suggesting that players of the games will think that those games were somehow created by or endorsed by AM General. I can't imagine that's the case; instead, most people are likely to think that Activision is attempting realism in their warfare game, since you basically cannot make an American warfare game accurately without including Humvees. Activision's response was on First Amendment grounds, arguing that its games are partly an historically accurate work of art, for which including Humvees is accurate and fair use.

As we pointed out in our original post, this case has great implications for the wider video game industry. Because of that, perhaps it's not hugely surprising to see that the Entertainment Software Association has jumped into the case with an amicus brief arguing for the granting of Activision's summary judgement motion. The whole thing is worth reading, but you can tell that the ESA's viewpoints on this are framed by the wider gaming industry.

AM General LLC’s (“AM General”) lawsuit raises issues of substantial importance to the video-game industry. Today’s video games are exceptionally diverse in their artistic expression, ranging from the action-adventure of Activision’s Call of Duty franchise, to educational games like Where in the World is Carmen San Diego?, to sports-themed games like Madden NFL, to historical simulation games like the Civilization franchise, to games that are derived from motion pictures like Star Wars or that inspire motion pictures like Assassin’s Creed. Whether factbased, fictional, or somewhere in between, many of these games refer to or incorporate real-life historical and cultural elements – often including real products like the military vehicles at issue in this case, and the trademarks, trade dress, and other distinctive elements used to accurately identify and depict those products – to create realistic interactive environments that facilitate expression, enhance verisimilitude, and enrich the user experience.

If AM General succeeds in punishing Activision for exercising its First Amendment right to depict realistic U.S. military vehicles in Call of Duty – or in forcing Activision to endure the burdens of a trial to vindicate its First Amendment rights – ESA’s members and gamers will suffer. Video-game developers and publishers will be exposed to even more frequent litigation, with some developers and publishers foregoing the use of real products in their works to avoid being dragged into court. Because AM General’s theory is antithetical to the rights of ESA’s members – and is irreconcilable with well-settled authority governing the use of real products in expressive works – ESA respectfully requests that this Court grant Activision’s motion for summary judgment.

There are many reasons why AM General's lawsuit should fail, but the risk to artistic output must certainly be first and foremost. The idea that a storied vehicle used in American warfare could be blocked from being depicted in artistic expression over intellectual property rights is purely antithetical to the First Amendment. What I suspect is happening here is something else that regularly annoys me: the dismissal of video games as artistic expression. After all, it's not as though we've heard about many fights between the Humvee people and the film industry. And, yet, the number of depictions of Humvees in TV and film is countless. So why should Call of Duty be any different?

The ESA brief makes this point in the brief.

VIDEO GAMES ARE CULTURALLY SIGNIFICANT EXPRESSIVE WORKS Since the creation of the first electronic game in the 1950s – a highly pixelated version of tic-tac-toe entitled Noughts and Crosses3 – video games have evolved into complex works that are similar to interactive movies. Video games equal books, films, and television shows in terms of cultural significance and share myriad elements with these more traditional forms of expression. Like novels, many video games have multi-dimensional characters, complex storylines, and carefully crafted dialogue. Like films and television shows, many video games contain story arcs, visual images, and musical scores that contribute to their emotional impact.

Video games have become an integral part of American culture. In 2018, nearly 165 million adults in the United States played video games, and 75 percent of all Americans had at least one gamer in their household.

In other words, Call of Duty is every bit as much art and culture as Saving Private Ryan, in which case it is afforded all of the same First Amendment and fair use protections as that movie. Given that, the use of a Humvee is pretty clear fair use in an expressive work. If found to be otherwise, the gaming industry writ large is in a whole lot of trouble, particularly for any game that wants to depict realism.

from the christ-what-a-bunch-of-officious-assholes dept

Cops may not know art, but they know what they don't like. Blowing past the First Amendment to give their official opinion on art critical of law enforcement is never an acceptable "solution," but it's one that happens nonetheless.

Last year, a high school decided it would rather demonstrate its subservience to local law enforcement than stand behind its students and their First Amendment rights. Photos of a painting of a cop in Ku Klux Klan hood pointing a gun at a black child appeared in the school newspaper. Instead of running the article, a teacher ran down to the cop shop to offer a profuse apology on behalf of "99.9% of the teachers at the school." Returning to school with the aftertaste of boot polish still lingering in his mouth, he engaged a full-on tongue kiss with the town's mayor, who offered his own profuse (and cowardly) apology to the offended police department.

What is surprising is the university's reaction to the controversial artwork. Faculty member Serhat Tanyolacar's submission was met with a whole lot of resistance from Polk State (Florida) itself due to its subject matter.

Tanyolacar’s piece, “Death of Innocence,” depicts several poets and writers juxtaposed with a number of altered images of President Donald Trump and other political figures engaging in sexual activity. According to Tanyolacar, the work is meant to highlight “moral corruption and moral dichotomy” and provoke debate.

Polk State Program Coordinator Nancy Lozell informed Tanyolacar on Feb. 6 that it would not be displayed at a then-upcoming faculty art exhibition because the college “offers classes and volunteer opportunities to our collegiate charter high schools and other high schools in Polk county and we feel that that particular piece would be too controversial to display at this time.”

The university refused to offer any justification for this move when asked to explain its ignorance of the First Amendment by FIRE. It also refused to provide an answer as to when the artwork would be exactly controversial enough to be put on display.

But it gets a whole lot weirder and scarier and stupider. Documents obtained via public records requests show school officials decided to get local law enforcement involved in its First Amendment altercation. For reasons only known to the school (but reasons that certainly appear to be vindictive), the school asked the Polk County Sheriff (ratherinfamousaroundtheseparts) and the county district attorney to hand down an ad hoc obscenity ruling. This is part of the letter sent to the school's president by the school's attorney, discussing the "solid ground" the university would be on if it chose to keep censoring Tanyolcar's art.

Earlier this week, we understand that you and several other College administrators met with the Polk County Sheriff and an Assistant State Attorney for the Tenth Judicial Circuit to discuss the Work. We understand that both the Sheriff and the Assistant State Attorney have stated that they view the Work to be obscene material and that they intend to enforce Florida’s obscenity statute in the event that the Work is displayed to the general public without restriction.

Without question, the Work is an overt depiction of sex acts being committed by national politicians, including the President of the United States. Art is often in the of the beholder, but, as Justice Potter is known for saying, “I know [obscene material] when I see it.” Jacobellis v. State of Ohio, 378 US. 184, 197 (1964)(Potter, J., concurring). You are certainly entitled to rely upon the wisdom and advice of the County Sheriff and the State Attorney’s Office in determining if the local Polk County community would view the Work as obscene material. Given that law enforcement has opined that the Work is obscene, we feel constrained to advise you of the same.

Not only did the school approach law enforcement to get clearance to bury this artwork, it also received assurances the Polk County Sheriff's Department would arrest someone (probably the artist) if the work was displayed publicly.

It's difficult to express just how fucked up this is. Rather than support a faculty member's protected expression, the university went out of its way to find some way to punish him for creating it. It wasn't enough for Polk State to simply reject his submission and deal with the inevitable -- and accurate -- accusations of censorship. No, it had to go to one of the lousiest sheriff's departments in the country and ask for assurances someone would be rung up on obscenity charges should the blow-back force release of Tanyolacar's creation.

from the copyright-suppressing-artists dept

Well, here's yet another crazy story of copyright interfering with art (ht to Jean for sending this over). Buckle in, because there's a lot to explain, starting with some truly astounding art, followed by more truly astounding art, with an extra helping of even more astounding art... and then an apparent claim of copyright infringement. What follows is truly amazing work by artist CJ Hendry. Most of this is taken from a long Instagram story in which she documented this entire process, so forgive the image heavy explanation here, but it helps to explain what happened -- so I'll include some explanatory screenshots.

She started with a bunch of Andy Warhol's famous Polaroids, cutting them out of the book of such photographs, and then sketched amazingly accurate renditions of them.

That, alone was incredibly impressive, but then she took it much further. She took her own drawings and crumpled up the papers:

... and then drew new images of her crumpled up drawings of the original polaroids:

Then, she made t-shirts featuring her drawings of the crumpled up drawings that she made replicating Andy Warhol's Polaroids:

If you're not in awe already, you should be. But Hendry kept going. Since this was all an homage to Andy Warhol, she took the homage even further and made up her own Campbell's style soup labels, put them on cans and put the t-shirts into the cans.

She was intending to sell each of the t-shirts in the cans, which would have been amazing... but then, copyright (maybe?) apparently got in the way.

It's not entirely clear who stepped in -- Hendry insists it was not the Warhol Foundation -- but suddenly that the sale has been cancelled:

If you can't read that, it says:

Thanks to everyone for the lovely messages about the tees sorry for letting you all down.

Believe it or not it had nothing to do with the Warhol Foundation, another organization completely.

Just for lolls I will probably bring out a tee as a massive spoof of the whole thing because why the heck not.

Stay tuned...

So, instead of selling them, she packed up each of these amazing cans, placed them in bright red boxes, labeled "Copyright Infringement -- Trash Only":

...and then has been placing them randomly around New York City for people to find, posting pictures (and addresses) on Instagram. I'm actually going to New York City in two days and am pissed off I'm going too late to find one of these amazing boxes and t-shirts.

Again, it's not entirely clear who is behind this. The book publisher Taschen published the book of Andy Warhol's Polaroids, so perhaps they have a copyright interest here? The only other one I can think of would be Campbell's Soup, though that would be crazy. Of course, a decade ago, we wrote about the letter that Campbell's Soup sent to Warhol back in 1964, joking that if Warhol had tried to do the same thing today, he undoubtedly would have received a cease and desist from a humorless corporate trademark lawyer. Instead, Campbell's celebrated Warhol's creativity:

It is too bad that the modern equivalent has been shut down via at least some sort of intellectual property threat.

from the it-will-get-a-whole-lot-worse-before-it-gets-even-worse dept

As Spain continues to expand its (anti-)speech laws, the rights of its citizens continue to contract. Not content with making it illegal to insult a cop or government officials, the Spanish government has decided to tackle hate speech and terrorism with the same ineptitude.

There's no punchline here. People are being arrested and charged with speech having nothing to with promoting hate or terrorism. And this is in addition to people who've found themselves targeted by vindictive public servants for daring to publicly criticize their words or actions.

It's gotten so bad Amnesty International -- an entity that usually spends its time decrying the acts of dictators and brutal authoritarians -- has felt compelled to speak up about Spain's terrible speech laws. Mathew Ingram has more details at Columbia Journalism Review.

In a new report on the phenomenon, entitled “Tweet… If You Dare,” Amnesty International looks at the rise in prosecutions under Article 578 of the country’s criminal code, which prohibits “glorifying terrorism” and “humiliating the victims of terrorism.” The law has been around since 2000, but was amended in 2015 and since then prosecutions and convictions have risen sharply.

So, who's been doing all this glorifying and humiliating? Well, it's not supporters of terrorism. Instead, it's musicians, artists, people telling jokes -- pretty much everybody but actual terrorists or proponents of hate.

Among those who have been hit by the law are a musician who tweeted a joke about sending the king a cake-bomb for his birthday and was sentenced to a year in prison, and a rapper who was sentenced to three-and-a-half years in jail for writing songs that the government said glorified terrorism and insulted the crown. A filmmaker and a journalist have also been charged under the anti-terrorism law, and a student who tweeted jokes about the assassination of the Spanish prime minister in 1973 was also sentenced to a year in prison, although her sentence was suspended after a public outcry.

Don't read too much into the into the post-outcry suspended sentence. Spain's government is still busy ensuring satire, commentary, and anything else that might wander into the territory of offensive remains a criminal offense. Anything that has been walked back has been the result of public outcry. Amnesty National's report "Tweet… if you dare" [PDF] notes hate speech and anti-terrorism speech law violations have resulted in 70 convictions over the past two years.

The student, (Cassandra Vera) who was arrested and sentenced for joking about a 45-year-old assassination, notes the government is still involved in acts of censorship that would be ridiculous if they weren't backed by threats of jail time.

Vera expressed similar views after her sentence was overturned. She pointed to the recent censorship of a work at a Madrid art fair and the seizure, on a judge’s orders, of Fariña, a book about drug-trafficking in Galicia, as proof that something was seriously wrong with free speech in Spain.

“People shouldn’t have to be afraid of expressing their opinions,” she told the Guardian. “What happened with Valtonyc and Fariña and the art exhibition showed that freedom of expression is under serious attack. I think freedom of expression has been dealt an almost fatal blow in Spain.”

Amnesty International is demanding the law be repealed. It has done little to deter acts of terrorism or successfully counter hate speech. Instead, it has been used to target dissidents, activists, and others who criticize the government. Whatever terrorism happens to be addressed under the law apparently only considers certain acts by domestic terrorists to be worthy of enforcement. Content and communications glorifying foreign terrorist groups is usually ignored by the government. As its report points out, the speech laws enacted by the Spanish government violate the rights of its citizens.

By using these laws to criminalize lawful expression, the Spanish authorities are disregarding international human rights law and standards. The impact of Article 578 is devastating to individuals – ranging from hefty fines, to lengthy periods of exclusion from the public sector, to prison sentences.

But even beyond these sanctions, such misuse of counter-terrorism provisions leads people to engage in self-censorship for fear that they may be targeted. The criminalization of such a wide range of expression has a general chilling effect and can create an environment where individuals are afraid of expressing unpopular views, or even making controversial jokes.

The report also notes several other European countries are also beginning to curtail the rights of their citizens in their quest to target hate speech and international terrorism. Germany's hate speech law roll out has been an unmitigated disaster and other countries like France and Italy seem all too willing to join Spain and Germany in killing satire, parody, and content they just don't agree with. All of this is being done under the heading of "public safety," but in reality, the public is no safer and will develop an unhealthy fear of their own governments.

from the nope dept

Last week, we wrote twice about sculptor Arturo Di Modica and his claim that the "Fearless Girl" statue, that was placed last month in front of his "Charging Bull" statue, violates his rights. As we explained, in detail, he has almost no legal case here. His letter to New York City argues three possible claims of action -- all of which would almost certainly be losers in court (as we detailed in that last post).

However, I still have seen a bunch of people arguing in support of Di Modica, claiming that he "has a point." Many have pointed to a blog post by Greg Fallis that is literally titled "Seriously, the guy has a point." Others have raised other issues in discussions I've seen (and taken part in...) on Twitter and Facebook. I still don't think he has any point at all, but I wanted to do a post addressing each of the key issues I've seen raised, and explaining why I think they fail as legitimate arguments.

Fearless Girl is an ad

I had debated mentioning this in the first post (and only obliquely noted that "there have been some criticisms" of Fearless Girl), but decided it was really meaningless. But people keep bringing it up, so let's address it. Yes, the Fearless Girl statue is an advertisement of sorts. The whole thing was created and financed by State Street, a massive investment firm, with help from McCann, one of the giant ad agencies. And a big part of the criticism is that State Street has a "gender diversity index" whose ticker symbol is SHE, focused on tracking the performance of "companies with the highest levels within their sectors of gender diversity on their boards of directors and in their senior leadership." And Fearless Girl has a plaque that says: "Know the power of women in leadership. SHE makes a difference." Many have, quite reasonably, argued that (especially given the capitalization of SHE) Fearless Girl is just an advertisement.

And the response to that should be... so what? As we've pointed out for many, many years, all content is advertising in some sense. It may be advertising for the artist. It may be advertising some idea. It may be advertising a theme. Di Modica's bull was "advertising" the resiliency of American capitalism. Just because it's advertising doesn't mean it's not artwork. And even advertising can have a positive social message. So, the claim that it's "advertising" doesn't really impact anything here. Yes. It's advertising. So what? It's also still art, and was created by a real artist whose own work and talents are unfairly diminished when you say that it's not art just because someone paid for it and it advertises something else. Or as our own Leigh Beadon points out:

If the Fearless Girl "isn't art" because a corporation paid for it and attached an ad, then nothing on network TV has ever been art either.

Some are arguing that because there's money involved, that somehow changes things, but I don't see how. After all, the bull itself celebrates money and markets, so if you're suddenly arguing that money is bad, well, then... I'm not sure how that supports the argument that the artist has a point.

It uses the only copy of Charging Bull

This is the argument I've heard most often after the "it's an ad" argument, and I'd argue it's more persuasive, but still not very persuasive. The argument here is that, unlike a remix or standard appropriation art, where the original work remains untouched, the placement of Fearless Girl effectively incorporates Charging Bull such that Charging Bull can no longer be separate from Fearless Girl. If you are to accept the idea that putting another artwork near an original piece of artwork can never be allowed, even in a public place, and even if the latter piece incorporates the original to comment on it... well, you're going to run into a lot of problems pretty quickly. Because then you're arguing two things that are pretty difficult to justify: (1) that an artist should get absolute control over any other works near his or her own artwork, and (2) that artwork is defined by what is around it and so the context can never change.

Both things seem unjustifiable. On the first point, what if, instead of the Fearless Girl statue, someone created a placard (an artistic placard) protesting what they believed was unfair sexism on Wall Street and stood next to the bull? Would that lead to the same outcry that this somehow "diminished" the Bull? Or imagine a world in which an artist could force a museum curator -- or a private collection owner -- to not display some other artist's artwork next to his or her own, because the juxtaposition of the two pieces was deemed by the artist to be unflattering? Most people would think that is crazy. How one puts up a piece of artwork, and what pieces are put around it, are the decisions of those who control the physical pieces and have the rights to display them. Here, Di Modica dumped his bull on the streets of New York, and New York now has possession of the physical statue. It can decide how to display it.

Plenty of museums use the careful placement of different works to create juxtaposition and even direct criticism or commentary. It would be crazy to think that an original artist could bar any of that.

As for the second point, we don't have to look very far to see how silly it is: Di Modica himself placed the bull in the street in front of the NY Stock Exchange, specifically making a point about that particular financial market. He was commenting on the NY Stock Exchange and the fact that it represents a form of capitalism and free markets (whether or not you agree with that is beside the point). And yet, NYC moved Charging Bull around the corner. It is no longer directly in front of the NYSE, but people still get the context and they understand the intent.

I've seen people arguing that if Fearless Girl were removed to somewhere else it wouldn't make the same point, but that's not necessarily true. People are not dumb. They can understand context. And they can see how context changes. The Bull moved from the NYSE to a nearby park, and yet people still recognize that Charging Bull is commenting on the stock market and the Wall St. ethos. Yes, it helped where it was initially placed, but the mythology around the placement has stuck with the Bull. The same is likely true for Fearless Girl. Were it -- or the Bull -- to now move, many people would still remember and recognize the initial juxtaposition, and understand the intent (again, even if it was an ad).

But Fearless Girl changes Charging Bull's meaning

I've seen this from a few people, arguing that the artist must have some right of "control" over the meaning of the statue. But that's just not the way it works. This is a similar argument that we've seen in lots of copyright disputes over the years -- especially cases involving fair use. People seem to ascribe a somewhat mythical concept of "control" or "control of message" that an artist can have over their artwork. But that's never been true. Once a work of art is released to the public, the public interacts with it and interprets it and that's wholly outside the control of the original artist. Sometimes, over time, people's impression of a work of art can change drastically -- from bad to good or from good to bad.

Indeed, that's a big part of art. Art is barely art if there's no reaction to it. The reaction itself is a large part of the art, and that reaction is not dictated by the artist. Sometimes that reaction is just how people see things. Sometimes that reaction is in how it inspires others to create other works. Art is often defined by the reaction to it. And here, if that reaction changed, that's just a part of the nature of art and culture and society and how those things interact. Over the years, for example, there have been debates about the artistic value of works that supported, celebrated or were associated with bigotry. And there have been protests against them. But that's allowed, because people are allowed to react to art how they want, and sometimes their reactions can impact how others see things as well. Some people who grew up with the Confederate flag as a symbol of the south have grown over time to realize the racist connotations it can hold. Should we not allow people to raise those issues and get people to rethink their support of that flag?

Control in art is an illusory concept: people insist it's there, when it really is not. An artist has control over the artwork while they're working on it and before they've released it to the world, but once it's out there, once it's become available to interact with the reactions of the public, control is lost. And that's a good thing. It's that loss of control that makes art art.

You may not like Fearless Girl. You may not like Charging Bull. You may not like capitalism or advertising -- or maybe you do. You may like control. But the simple fact is that none of the arguments that Di Modica and his supporters are making make much sense in the grand scheme of things. The bull can survive Fearless Girl and so can Di Modica.

from the I-HEAR-YOU-LOUD-AND-CLEAR,-CERTAIN-CONSTITUENTS dept

A Republican congressman took matters into his own hands Friday and personally removed a painting depicting police officers as pigs that a colleague had allowed to be displayed at the U.S. Capitol complex.

“I was angry,” Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., told FoxNews.com. “I’ve seen the press [reporting] on this for about a week or so. … I’m in the Marine Corps. If you want it done, just call us.”

Hunter said he walked over to the artwork Friday morning with a few colleagues and unscrewed it. He then delivered it to the office of Rep. Lacy Clay, D-Mo., the congressman whose office had allowed the piece to be displayed. The painting, hanging since June, was done by a high school student who had won Clay’s annual Congressional Art competition.

Can't get legislators off their asses to pass a budget in a timely manner or, I don't know, step up to do anything about the DOJ's Rule 41 changes, but you can count on them to apply long-dormant self-motivation to personal agendas.

Rep. Hunter, offended on behalf of an entire nation unions offended on behalf of their members, saw to it that painting, which the police unions bitched at length about, was removed from the public eye. Not that there was any outrage shown by a majority of constituents, who most likely first heard about this painting after it was removed. Here's the most offending part of the painting, as captured by the Independent Journal Review.

Coming to the defense of powerful, armed men and women who possess the power to stop and/or detain people for violating imaginary laws is the Association of Los Angeles Deputy Sheriffs. In the demand letter posted to its website, the ALADS refers to the painting as a "piece of hate," before going on and on and on about how the nation owes law enforcement its undying support.

Everyone should be alarmed when those whose job it is to fight crime on a daily basis are being depicted as pigs. Why do otherwise reasoned individuals-despite evidence before them to the contrary-become reflexively critical of police? How can a member of Congress jump to the twisted conclusion that it is okay to hang a painting that adds to the divide in our country and attacks law enforcement? Public safety requires a strong two-way partnership. At a time of our country facing rising crime and a shortage of those willing to work the streets as police officers and deputy sheriffs, we need to make it clear that depictions of law enforcement officers as pigs in our Nation's Capital are not acceptable. The dedicated men and women who put on a uniform daily, who serve to protect our communities, deserve all the support the community can possibly provide.

I assume "everyone" is just supposed to remain in their current state of alarm, since police being depicted as pigs went mainstream nearly a half-century ago. The implication of the rest of the paragraph is that anything less than full-fledged support of the law enforcement community divides nations and causes staffing shortages. And presumably ALADS believes any criticism of police is "reflexive," and not at all based on actual law enforcement actions and activities.

The same goes for the other law enforcement unions whose feelings were hurt by a high school student's artwork -- one that was informed by the aftershocks of the shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, MO.

In an earlier statement calling on House Speaker Paul Ryan to remove it, the Los Angeles Police Protective League, the Sergeants Benevolent Association of New York, and the San Francisco, Oakland and San Jose Police Officers Associations said: “This false narrative portrays law enforcement professionals as posing a danger to the very communities we serve. That is untrue and this ‘art’ reinforces this false narrative and is disrespectful on so many levels.”

That's an interesting take -- one that suggests law enforcement officers pose no danger to the people they serve.

So, based on a new set of false narratives, one periodically-attentive Congressional rep has appointed himself censor... not for the good of the public at large, but for the good a certain subset of the public -- and subset of public servants -- who just couldn't accept the idea that some people don't view them as heroes.

from the pics-or-gtfo dept

It's probably time for Facebook to give up trying to be the morality police, because it isn't working. While nobody expects the social media giant to be perfect at policing its site for images and posts deemed "offensive", it's shown itself time and time again to be utterly incapable of getting this right at even the most basic level. After all, when the censors are removing iconic historical photos, tirades againstprejudice, forms of pure parody, and images of a nude bronze statue in the name of some kind of corporate puritanism, it should be clear that something is amiss.

Yet the armies of the absurd march on, it seems. Facebook managed to kick off the new year by demanding that an Italian art historian remove an image of a penis from her Facebook page. Not just any penis, mind you. It was a picture of a godly penis. Specifically, this godly penis.

That, should you not be an Italian art historian yourself, is a picture of a statue of the god Neptune. In the statue, which adorns the public streets of Bologna, Neptune is depicted with his heavenly member hanging out, because gods have no time for clothes, of course. Yet this carved piece of art somehow triggered a Facebook notice to the photographer, Elisa Barbari.

According to the Telegraph, Barbari got the following notification from Facebook. “The use of the image was not approved because it violates Facebook’s guide lines on advertising. It presents an image with content that is explicitly sexual and which shows to an excessive degree the body, concentrating unnecessarily on body parts. The use of images or video of nude bodies or plunging necklines is not allowed, even if the use is for artistic or educational reasons.”

Even were I to be on board with a Facebook policy banning nudity and, sigh, "plunging necklines" even in the interest of education or art -- which I most certainly am not on board with -- the claim that the image is explicitly sexual and focused on "body parts" is laughably insane. There's nothing sexual about the depiction of Neptune at all, unless we are to believe that all nudity is sexual, which simply isn't true. Also, the depiction focuses not on one body part, but on the entire statue. Nothing about this makes sense.

And that's likely because Facebook is relying on some kind of algorithm to automatically generate these notices. Confusingly, the site's own community standards page makes an exception for art, despite the notice Barbari received claiming otherwise.

Strangely, an exception is made for art. “We also allow photographs of paintings, sculptures, and other art that depicts nude figures.”

Except when it doesn't, that is. Look, again, nobody is expecting Facebook to be perfect at this. But the site has a responsibility, if it is going to play censor at all, to at least be good enough at it not to censor statues of art in the name of prohibiting too much skin.

from the see-and-hear dept

As our sound equipment gets smaller, sleeker and more convenient, it's hard not to take a moment to appreciate the aesthetics of old-school hi-fi — the hulking, elaborate boomboxes that weighed a ton, gobbled up batteries, and looked cool doing it. A Touch Of Bass is a project to memorialize that era of design in pieces of functional art: photographs of vintage boomboxes are printed and mounted on a shadowbox, and fitted with real speakers connected to a bluetooth sound system. The result is a detailed wall-hanging reproduction of a classic piece of technology that connects to modern devices and functions like a real boombox. There's a huge selection of classic boombox designs in a range of sizes to choose from, and the speakers themselves are a high-quality pair of woofers and single tweeter for authentic, top-notch sound.

Hazang speakers are a unique sight: elegant spherical speakers that, at a glance, look like something built long before the age of recorded audio. Each speaker is hand-crafted in North Vietnam using traditional weaving techniques to create a speaker box that's striking and unique, with a bamboo body and a hemp fabric faceplate. The high-end, high-tech guts ensure each speaker delivers superior sound, while the low-tech exterior not only looks good but is designed to serve as an excellent acoustic casing in its own right — all with a price tag which, while not cheap, is competitive for a piece of quality audio gear with such stunning design.

COSMOS isn't just a speaker: it's also a clock and an ambient lamp, and it's all based on the night sky. The face of the COSMOS is a full map of the constellations in the northern hemisphere, backlit in all their glittering glory. But it also includes a pair of special stars to indicate the hands of a clock, and it conceals a bluetooth speaker at the base. It doesn't strive to offer the high-end sound of the previous two entries, but serves more as an all-around art piece that would make an excellent bedside lamp, or just an eye-catching decoration.

from the get-licked dept

We're still fresh on the heels of Facebook's overly broad and prudish decency rules resulting in the takedown of a bronze piece of artwork in the form of a mermaid statue that features bare metal breasts. Womens' breasts, as we all know, are shameful things to be hidden from view, lest they corrupt the minds of the young children that were so nourished by them in their youth. Sigh.

Still, as dumb as that story was, and as indicative as it was of the problem of overly broad censorship guidelines employed in the name of decency, at least there were breasts. Metallic breasts, but breasts nonetheless. I have no idea how Facebook keeps this recent story from looking even more silly, in which it takes down a piece of artwork shared by Philidelphia Museum of Art that was constructed specifically to show how objectified women were in the 1960s.

The piece was created in 1964 by artist Evelyne Axell and is entitled "Ice Cream," because it is a stylized painting of a woman enjoying an ice cream cone. The entire point of the piece was to challenge society on how it views women as sexual objects before anything else, such that this image of an everyday occurrence appears tantalizing when it should not.

The museum's new post includes more details on the artwork: " 'Ice Cream' (1964) was painted by Evelyne Axell, one of the first female Pop artists. Her work can be understood as a critique of mainstream Pop Art, in which women were often depicted as passive, decorative objects. In contrast, Axell sought to depict active, confident women who pursue satisfaction on their own terms—such as the protagonist of "Ice Cream," who unabashedly enjoys her dessert. Axell’s provocative paintings challenge artistic conventions while also exhibiting a liberated, playful spirit characteristic of the sexual revolution of the 1960s."

Ironically, Facebook's removal of the original post with the image of the painting, due to it "containing excessive amounts of skin or suggestive content", exemplifies the entire point of the painting. Not only is there nothing in terms of skin to view in the painting, the "suggestive content" that Facebook is reacting to is only suggestive by way of society's myopic view on women as sexual objects. It's a woman enjoying an ice cream, not a woman performing the sex act that immediately leaps to mind. I'll admit I had the same reaction as Facebook at first, because I'm part of the exact society upon which the piece is commenting. That's the point.

For Facebook to take that down says nothing about its view on decency, but everything about how prudish censorship programs are too often employed to the detriment of much-needed culture.

from the blockheads dept

Late last year, we relayed the story of Ai Weiwei, an artist who had previously used Legos to create political art in the form of portraits, being refused a bulk order of Lego blocks by the company. At issue was a long-standing company policy prohibiting its facilitation of blocks being used for political speech. As a result of Weiwei going public about the refusal, the story was Streisanded into the public consciousness, resulting in condemnation and shaming from more of the masses than would have ever been aware of the project otherwise.

And, in a classic example of how the Streisand Effect often culminates, Lego is now reversing course -- not only regarding Weiwei's project, but it's nixing the entire policy.

On Tuesday, Lego announced that it would no longer ask what the "thematic purpose" of a project is. Instead, customers who intend to display their creations in public will be asked to make clear that Lego does not support or endorse them.

Asked whether it was in response to Ai's case, the toy-maker said it had been asked whether it supports human rights and freedom of expression. In an email, spokesman Roar Rude Trangbaek wrote: "We always have and continue to do — this is at the heart of what Lego play is all about. ... We hope the new guidelines will make it more clear what we stand for."

It would have been too much to hope for to expect Lego to come out and flat out admit the policy it had previously adopted was simply wrong on a moral level. Still, this is a lesson in the power of public shaming, particularly in an era where the internet has fostered wider connections than had been possible previously. Would Lego have revised its policy if Weiwei's story had not gone viral? I think we know the answer to that question, given that this isn't the first time the question over Legos being used in political artwork has come up, but is the first time the policy has been revised.

Oddly, after Lego had initially refused Weiwei's order, he turned to a Chinese competitor instead. This was done as many speculated that Lego had taken its actions in order to appease the Chinese government, as Weiwei is a Chinese dissident.

The Melbourne exhibition, which opened in December, was to feature 20 portraits of Australian pro-freedom figures made from Lego bricks. Instead, it used similar bricks from a Chinese company, Ai said.

"I couldn't tell much difference and the price is much, much lower," he added.

And now the Streisand Effect has multiplied to include the greater exposure of a Lego competitor. Perhaps that's the reason for the policy change.